Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
The Office of Budget and Financial Planning (OBFP) is a professional service
organization in the Institute’s financial administration area. The mission of the office is
to provide value‐added integrated planning and collaborative budgeting and financial
guidance through strategic vision, complex analyses, and access to tools and
information. The following figures illustrate the dynamic interactions between planning,
budgeting, and capital allocation.
MULTI-YEAR PLANNING
QUARTERLY FORECASTING Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
OBFP serves two primary client groups: senior management in its leadership
commitment to the Institute and Corporation; and departments, labs, centers (DLCs),
and administrative areas in support of their financial planning and management
responsibilities.
The team remains committed to continuous improvement in planning and budget
processes to support and ensure the excellence of its products and the vitality of MIT.
OBFP pursued and developed long‐term goals and initiatives to leverage technology in
support of Institute budgeting and planning strategies and processes and to enhance
analysis and resource management techniques in support of our diverse client base. This
ranges from the Executive Committee of the Corporation and senior academic and
18–10
Office of Budget and Financial Planning
administrative leadership to administrative and financial officers and other financial
clients.
Consistent with the goal that financial data should reside in a common database and be
the source of all budget and financial performance analyses, OBFP, in collaboration with
Administrative Computing in Information Services and Technology, has undertaken to
design a system that integrates the MIT budgeting process into Systems, Applications,
and Products in Data Processing (SAP), the Institute’s system of record. Primary goals
include the following:
• Reduction of interfaces between systems and the implementation of a common
hierarchy, technology platform, and user interface
• Integrated budget planning, submission, and forecast capabilities
• The opportunity to review and redesign business processes, including the
elimination of duplicative efforts and the substitution of manual processes with
systems solutions
• Enhanced functionality both for the external community and internally in the
Budget Office
• Increased efficiencies through decentralized transaction entry and management
We anticipate the system will be live for FY2006 budget submission and resource
allocation. The following figure presents the current project timeline.
Priority II
SAP Transaction Management
Opportunity
There are several related initiatives under way, integrated into the goals of SAPBUD
system development or related to our commitment to provide access to tools and
information. Major initiatives include the following:
18–11
MIT Reports to the President 2003–2004
• All resources budgeting, linked with SAPBUD, is an initiative to enable academic
units to budget resources including not only the general Institute budget and
carry‐forward amounts, but also other sources of revenue. This initiative
enhances both the unit’s ability to manage its resources and senior management
oversight, as all revenue (except current gifts and faculty discretionary amounts
in academic budgets) and expenses will be presented in one system.
• Position budgeting in administrative areas, linked with the new Human Resources
Position Administration Database, is an initiative that integrates baseline‐
approved salary budgets to approved full‐time equivalent (FTE) levels. It
involves regular monitoring of salary and FTE budgets and allows variances to
be explained on a position‐by‐position basis. Its underlying principle is the truth‐
in‐salary concept, a requirement that salary budgets represent actual expected
salary costs for a given fiscal year.
The office continues to advance its understanding of clients’ businesses with the goal of
developing strategic information and providing better tools for resource allocation
policy and management.
Medical Department
OBFP began a major long‐range study of the Medical Department and its offerings,
undertaken in collaboration with the Medical Department and the Controller’s
Accounting Office. The delivery of medical service is complex organizationally and
financially, and changing national health care trends and other dynamics have increased
pressure on the ability to carry out a medical mission. Primary goals of the project
include the following:
• Student insurance review and redesign, including alternative benefit and
payment models, rate‐setting strategies, and benchmarking alternative student
insurance plans
• Business and pricing model review, including service, cost structure, and
utilization analysis; development of metrics to measure ongoing performance;
and benchmarking against external entities
• Development of an integrated model based on strategic assessment of medical
services and benefits, capital and reserve requirements, pricing and service
analysis, and needs of the MIT community
The project involves strategic planning in collaboration with internal and external
resources, extensive data research and analysis, significant community involvement, and
interaction with high‐level oversight groups.
Other
The office works in collaboration with the Office of the Dean for Student Life, the
Treasurer’s Office, Enterprise Services, and other academic and administrative groups in
18–12
Office of Budget and Financial Planning
support of our ongoing goals of optimal resource allocation in Institute capital
requirements and debt structure, enterprise and auxiliary business planning, and other
individual area needs.
The financial planning team continues to work on a major overhaul of the long‐range
financial model. The model, our planning tool for estimating the long‐range financial
impact of strategic decisions and economic conditions on the Institute’s operating
statement and balance sheet, was originally developed in 1999. The overhaul aims to
achieve the following:
• Revisit and refine the model structure to more accurately reflect the dynamic
relationships between variables (e.g., research volume and graduate student
growth)
• Recalibrate revenue and expense formulas to incorporate recent policy changes
and other developments
• Redesign report output to comport with the Statement of Operations used in the
Budget Book and in the quarterly and end‐of‐year reports.
• Develop a platform to allow improved data storage and scenario development
• Provide an automated feed of relevant data from the new Capital Planning and
Budgeting Model
The recent level of new construction and the numerous renovation and renewal projects
have put pressure on current capital planning and budgeting processes and led to a
need to develop a more structured set of tools. As a result, OBFP is working
collaboratively with the Department of Facilities on a system interfacing facilities‐
specific data with budget and centrally maintained data. We anticipate that the new
system will gather information now distributed among several stakeholders into one
central location, meet the needs of diverse clients, and reduce errors common to manual
entry or reentry processes. Examples of stakeholder needs targeted by the new system
are as follows:
• DLC, unit, and Department of Facilities need for status reports on funding and
expenditures
• Project manager needs for budget and spending levels
• Cost analysis needs for construction and renovation planning, budgets, and
building uses and location
• OBFP needs for project status, budget, funding sources, commitments, and
monitoring guidelines
Accomplishments
This year, OBFP continued to develop its financial management, systems, and reporting
capability, including the following:
18–13
MIT Reports to the President 2003–2004
• Collaborative development of the submission and review modules of SAP Web
in the new SAPBUD system, including participation of a Community Advisory
Group that was successfully recruited and managed by OBFP
• Establishment of a training strategy and partial development of a training
module for budget submission through SAPBUD
• Continued enhancement of the annual Budget Book, including revamped sections
for reporting school and department finances, modeled on the All Resources
section of the SAPBUD system, and for analyzing research, tuition, and financial
aid
• Development of a formal end‐of‐year report, integrating budget and generally
accepted accounting principles financial data and analyzing department and unit
financial activity during the year
• Launch of truth‐in‐salary budgeting in administrative units with the FY2005
budget submission cycle, under the guidance of the executive vice president, and
of position budgeting for administrative units, including recruiting and
managing an implementation team with representatives from an academic area,
Human Resources, and administrative units
• Development of client‐based tools in support of our goal for continuous process
improvement, including an electronic budget authorization option and a Brio
tool for closing and carry‐forward analysis that may serve as a model for
automating part of the closing process
• Collaborative development of a prototype model of the OBFP–designed capital
planning and budgeting system, involving rational redesign of the capital
funding and monitoring process, for discussion with the community and
incorporation into SAPBUD
OBFP continued its work in planning and analysis in the following significant areas:
• In collaboration with its partners in the Medical Department study, the office
completed the student insurance review and developed a long‐term pricing and
service strategy for student health insurance. In addition, an extensive baseline
analysis that will serve as a platform for continuing study was completed and
presented to constituent groups.
• The overhaul effort of the stochastic planning model achieved a major milestone.
A redesigned platform, using a Microsoft Access database and Excel workbook,
has been developed and tested. Report output has been redesigned. Data has
been collected and analyzed for historical trends, anomalies, and statistical
correlations in preparation for a working beta version of the new model planned
for early next fiscal year.
• Several significant capital planning and financing analyses were completed for
constituent clients, including studies for the MIT Press, Housing, the Media Lab,
and debt‐related initiatives.
Administrative Initiatives
The Audit Division and the Budget Office formally launched a successful sharing of
resources. The units share an administrative assistant and a joint reception area that
18–14
Office of Budget and Financial Planning
serves the needs of both offices. Discussions began to extend this shared support to the
information technology area. In addition, OBFP participated in a local distributed
services arrangement for certain administrative and logistics functions that has resulted
in office space savings (through sharing supply areas) and efficiencies in purchasing and
distributing office supplies.
Future Plans
Many projects that are part of the goals and objectives of the Office of Budget and
Financial Planning are long term. We will continue our work on the Medical
Department study and its remaining objectives; on the SAPBUD, Stochastic Modeling,
Capital Planning and Budgeting systems; and on our focus on continuous improvement
in planning and budget processes and efficiencies in local and Institute resource
allocation and management. Overall, future plans center around a twofold collaborative
agenda: pushing enhanced planning and budgeting tools out into the community and
pulling more information about the financial and business processes of the community
into the central store of knowledge—with the single goal of augmenting our ability to
manage allocations wisely and look for new, more effective ways to accomplish our
goals.
Personnel Information
Israel Ruiz, recently named an associate director of the Office of Budget and Financial
Planning, was recruited to the board of the MIT Press.
OBFP was required to give preliminary layoff notice to two individuals in order to meet
its FY2005 budget target. These individuals will receive official notice in the coming
fiscal year.
Israel Ruiz, Associate Director
Margaret Warner, Associate Director
18–15